Building Climate Resilience Through Solar-Powered Irrigation in Northern Uganda

Two Ugandan women smiling in agricultural setting, displaying large cabbage. — Smallholder farmers under the PUMP-UP Project proudly display their harvest—grown using solar water pumps and climate-smart agriculture practices.

August 11, 2025

PUMP-UP Learning Brief (3.24 MB)

In Northern Uganda’s Gulu and Yumbe districts, smallholder farmers—particularly women, youth, and refugees—are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, and rising temperatures are threatening livelihoods that depend heavily on agriculture. While Uganda has vast potential for solar-powered irrigation, adoption of solar water pumps (SWPs) remains low due to high costs, limited awareness, and gaps in technical support.

The Powering the Uptake of Climate Change Mitigating Pumps (PUMP-UP) project, funded by DANIDA and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and implemented by Mercy Corps in partnership with Tulima Solar and Simusolar, is working to change that. By integrating Solar Water Pump technology with climate-smart agriculture and sustainable water management, the program is helping smallholder farmers improve productivity, strengthen resilience, and secure year-round food supplies.

This learning brief distills key findings from the December 2024 Annual Survey on barriers to Solar Water Pump adoption and offers practical recommendations to guide policymakers, private sector actors, and development partners in accelerating access to this transformative technology.